


Things Unseen

by lanestreets



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Gen, Known Supernatural Beings, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Slow Burn, Spirits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 12:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16219070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanestreets/pseuds/lanestreets
Summary: Steve's known almost his whole life that his anchor was going to be one of the Kelly-Kalakaua family, the only ones strong enough to tie him to the Seen when he needed to talk to a spirit. What he did not know was how important a cop from Jersey who doesn't believe in ghosts would end up being.In which Steve and Kono are peak mlm/wlw solidarity, Danny is a wreck, Chin is tired and there are some ghosts.





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place prior to and during season one as of now! A bit of a ghost story in time for the month of Halloween!
> 
> A huge shout out to @smilesRAwesome for helping me summary, even though she had no idea what I was talking about.

When Steve is in high school, his father finally partners with his true anchor. Steve meets Chin Ho Kelly after his first football game of the season, when his father drags the rookie cop down towards the field with a proud look on his face. 

“Steve, I’d like you to meet Chin Ho.” Steve thinks that Chin Ho looks a little uncomfortable. He sticks out his hand with a smile anyway.

Chin Ho takes it.

“Nice to meet you, Chin Ho. Steve McGarrett,” Steve introduces himself, as though Chin Ho doesn’t already know that. 

Chin Ho smiles, and says, “Just call me Chin. We’re practically family now, brah.”

Steve’s eyes widen and he looks to his father for confirmation, and he gets a small nod in response. 

Chin shakes his head when he sees Jack’s answer, and elaborates on his own. “Your father’s my training officer with HPD, but more than that, it looks like I’m his anchor. Looks like you won’t be having to put up with my Auntie Launa whenever your dad needs to go on a visit.”

Jack actually smiles at that. 

The McGarrett family and the Kelly-Kalakaua family have been tied together for generations, dating back farther than Steve cares to look. The McGarretts are spirit-speakers, able to communicate with unseen entities and the spirits of the deceased, the most powerful of their kind in the past several hundred years. The Kelly-Kalakauas have always been their anchors, the only ones powerful enough to tie a McGarrett to the physical world when they go to visit one of the Unseen. Without an anchor, a spirit-speaker would become untethered, their own essence detached from their body and unable to find its way back. They would die and become one of the Unseen themselves. But with an anchor, they could move back and forth between the world of the Seen and the Unseen with ease, so long as they didn’t stray too far.

A spirit-speaker could work with any anchor safely, as Jack had been doing with Chin’s Auntie. But in order to use their power to its fullest, a speaker needs their true anchor, or they could easily get lost in the Unseen, even with an anchor’s best efforts. 

Steve wonders which of the Kelly-Kalakaua clan he’ll end up pairing with, knows it's inevitable that he’ll end up with one of them as his guide. It’s beyond just a tradition. Their families are so deeply connected, it’d feel wrong to work with anyone else as his anchor, he’s sure of it. 

Steve looks at Chin and his father, looks at the way they already seem so at ease with each other, and he wonders. 

~*~ 

Steve’s mom dies, and everything changes so suddenly that it sends Steve reeling.

Mary gets sent to live with their Aunt Deb, who didn’t inherit the spirit-speaker gene, just like Mary didn’t. Steve gets shipped off to Annapolis with a recommendation from his dad’s buddy Joe White. Chin is there with their father to see them off at the airport, and as they part Steve thinks about how now, he’ll never know who his true anchor is, and he’s hit with an overwhelming sadness for a brief moment. 

By the time he’s stepped off the plane, he’s got all of that feeling of hurt and sad and loneliness tucked away in a neat little box in the corner of his mind. 

There are plenty of anchors in the world. If the Navy decides to make use of his abilities, they’ll find him an anchor and he’ll do what he needs to and it’ll be fine. He’ll just have to be careful. 

He can do this. 

~*~

Freddie Hart is the strongest anchor Steve’s met outside the Kelly-Kalakaua family. It takes work, but they both make it through Annapolis and through BUD/S and the second they graduate, Steve requests that Freddie be assigned to him as his anchor. Spirit-speakers never know when their abilities might come in handy, and wouldn’t it be safest to have Freddie always by his side, in case Steve needs to make a visit? 

The higher ups grumble a little bit about mediums being weird, and their dislike of the Unseen, but they agree it’s safest for Steve to have Freddie on standby, and from then on, they’re joined at the hip.

Freddie is a good anchor for Steve when he needs to make a visit. Steve is a good anchor for Freddie when the distance between him and his fiance weighs on him and he needs someone to assure him that this is all worth it. Freddie isn’t Steve’s true anchor, but he’s more than good enough. Steve can’t tap into the fullest extent of his power with Freddie, it’d be too dangerous for them both, but he can access enough of it for he and Freddie to be near indispensable for many ops. This thing that they have is good, and it’s enough to quiet the ache that raged in Steve’s chest the entire time he was without an anchor. 

And then one day, Steve’s on base with Freddie and Joe White, and he feels the telltale pressure behind his eyes, the buzzing in his throat that means there’s someone trying to talk to him. He smacks Freddie on the arm because his voice is currently failing him, and Freddie clasps Steve’s hand between his own, and Steve lets go of his control. 

He floats for a minute, untethered and lost, before Freddie’s voice snaps him back to attention. 

“Come on Steve. Someone’s waiting on you. Who is it?”

Steve gets his legs under him and looks around the empty, hazy void of the Unseen, to find whoever had wanted to talk. There’s a young man, dressed in rags, with a gunshot wound in his forehead. His eyes are glazed over, but he still stares directly at Steve, making truly unnerving eye contact. 

He tells Freddie what he sees. His lips move, but he hears his voice in his head, not in his ears. He’s speaking to Freddie, not the spirit. 

To the spirit, he says, “Why did you come to me?” 

The spirit responds, and then dissipates and Steve snaps back into his body with a ragged gasp, and  an, “I know where Anton Hesse is.” 

A few days later, he wishes he had ignored the spirit. 

Because now Freddie is dead and so is his dad and Steve feels like a hole has been punched straight through him. Freddie was a part of him, even though he wasn’t Steve’s true anchor. He and Steve had bonded in a way he couldn’t describe, Freddie had been in his head, in his soul, had probably known Steve better than Steve knows himself, and now Steve is suddenly, horribly, painfully alone. 

All he wants is to ask his dad how he handled losing his mom, because Steve is certain this is that bad, but he doesn’t even have his dad anymore. He returns to Hawaii and barely pauses to bury his father before he’s off after Victor Hesse. 

Danny Williams is a setback, at first and then a tentative ally, but Steve needs more than that. He needs more than just a detective from Jersey with an attitude and fresh eyes. He needs someone who knows the island and who he can trust and he needs someone to help him use his fucking abilities because a spirit has been pulling at his mind since he touched down on the island.

He needs one of the Kelly-Kalakaua family. 

It just so happens he now has the means to find one. 

~*~

Chin Ho Kelly working as a rent a cop is not something Steve would have ever imagined, but here they are anyway. Danny eyes him up suspiciously with a raised eyebrow. 

“This is the man who’s gonna help us crack this case? What are you, nuts?”

Steve shakes his head. “Chin was my father’s anchor. He’s a great cop and a good man.”

“If he’s such a great cop why is he working in this dump?” Danny asks and Steve scowls. “And what the hell are you talking about anchor?”

“My dad was a spirit-speaker, like me. Chin was his anchor. My family and Chin’s have been tied together like that for generations. If I hadn’t gone to Annapolis, I would’ve worked with people in his family until I clicked with one of them, and they would’ve been my anchor, instead of the man I worked with in the service.” 

Danny scoffs, and turns to face Steve head on, stopping them in their tracks on their way to Chin’s new place of employment. 

“You’re telling me, honestly telling me, that you are a medium, and that we’re here to pick up your guide?”

“That’s what they’d call us on the mainland, yeah. But Chin’s not my guide. He was my dad’s. Still, I can’t visit the Unseen world without an anchor to tether me here or I might as well be signing my own death warrant. So I need to borrow Chin until I can find Hesse.” What he doesn’t say is that he needs to borrow Chin so that he can get the spirit that’s following him to lay off. Danny doesn’t need to know that. 

“You’re actually certifiable, you know that? You honestly expect me to believe that you talk to ghosts? What the hell is the matter with you? We’re actually trying to solve a case here. Your father’s murder to be specific, and you’re trying to play a practical joke on me?”

“No joking about it brah,” someone says, and Steve smiles when he looks up to see Chin approaching. “Steve McGarrett. It’s been a long time. I’m sorry about your father.”

Steve’s smile turns a little sad, but it doesn’t fade. There’s something very settling about being near Chin, even though Chin’s not his anchor. It settles the buzzing in his throat at least. That’s better than nothing. 

“I didn’t see you at the funeral, man,” Steve says, and Chin’s expression falls. 

“I wanted to come, but I’m not exactly a friend of HPD at the moment. I didn’t want to cause any trouble at your father’s service,” Chin explains. 

Steve’s brow furrows. “What happened, man? All I ever heard from my dad was how you were the best cop he’d ever seen, and he wasn’t just saying that because you’re his anchor.” 

“Few years after you left, Jack and I were out on a case. It was dark, and I was in the middle of anchoring your father, so I didn’t see the guy until it was too late. I got bit.” 

“What species?” Danny asks. 

“Werewolf,” Chin says, with a brief flash of his eyes. Danny raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment. “After I turned, people started saying things, about how I might have split allegiances cause I had a tie to a criminal pack. I didn’t, but rumors spread. And then two hundred thousand dollars went missing from the asset forfeiture locker and there was a rumor it was me and that was it. I was still on call whenever your father needed me, but other than that? I’m not really well-liked by the Honolulu Police Department.” There’s a bitter tone in Chin’s voice, but he doesn’t show it on his face. 

“Did you--” Danny says. 

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Steve cuts him off. 

“Anyway, enough about me. What’s got you sticking around Oahu? Last I heard you were still a SEAL,” Chin says, breezing by Danny’s almost question. 

“The governor’s asked me to head up a task force to tackle the major crimes on the island. I took her up on the offer.” 

“You took her up on it so you could steal my crime scene,” Danny mumbles, and Chin snorts at that. 

“Not even back a week and you’re running around stealing whole crime scenes from people? You really do take after your old man. What’s the case?” Chin asks. 

Danny raises his eyebrows, and looks at Steve. “Yeah, Steven, why don’t you tell him what scene you stole from me?”

Steve grimaces and Chin crosses his arms. “Absolutely not. No, Steve, I won’t anchor you so you can speak with your father. You know how dangerous that is. You can’t contact your own ancestors, you know the rules.”

“Oh, so there’s rules to this crazy show now, are there?”

“Of course there are rules. You believe in other supernaturals, why not this?” Chin counters.

“Because I can see that you are a werewolf. I can see a nymph using their abilities. I can see all of that. What I cannot see are ghosts. Because they do not exist, which is why I do not believe in them,” Danny says, gesturing emphatically as though that’ll prove his point. 

“You know we call them the Unseen for a reason?” 

“Whatever you call them, I think this is ridiculous, but whatever you’re going to do can we get it done, so that we can get back to solving this case?”

Steve holds out his hand to Chin. “I know you’re not my anchor, but there’s a spirit that’s been following me since I touched down on the island. I need to know who they are and what they want. I swear I won’t go looking for my father. I just can’t shake the feeling this is important. I need to know who this spirit is.”

Chin sighs, and purses his lips. “Fine. But remember, I spent over a decade in Jack McGarrett’s head. I know his presence. If I feel even a hint of him there, I’m pulling you out by force, got it?”

Steve nods, and Chin clasps Steve’s hand in his own, and Steve lets go. 

He goes spiralling wildly, deeper into the Unseen than he’s ever gone that fast, until, very faintly he hears, “Come back,” and he comes careening to a halt. 

Steve forces his incorporeal form to right itself, and puts his feet onto the Unseen’s approximation of the ground. It’s mostly just a hazy mess in the general direction of down, but his belief that it’s a solid floor makes it so. 

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” he hears. 

When he finally responds, “I’m here,” his lips move but the words only sound in his head. 

“Good, good. You’re looking for a spirit, the one who’s been following you since you got to the island. Remember?” Chin says. Steve did not remember. Steve tells Chin so. “Well, you know it now, that’s enough. Find them. Find the spirit. Tell me what they look like.”

Steve glances around, wanders through the Unseen for what feels like unending ages. His watch says it’s been three minutes. 

The hazy ground solidifies under his feet as he walks, but it goes cloudy again when he picks his feet up. Above him, it looks just the same, but it’s a pink tinted orangey color instead of the green tinted purple underfoot. The vague outlines of buildings surround him and he gets the feeling he’s walking down a street, but everything is too blurred for him to be absolutely certain.

He wanders further and the ringing picks up in his ears telling him he’s pushing himself too far for Chin to hold onto him so he turns and wanders back. Eventually, he senses that he’s in the same place he started. The foggy outlines here resemble trees more than buildings. He wanders a little closer to the barrier of the Seen, though he’s still nowhere close to it. His watch tells him it’s been six minutes since he delved into the Unseen. Finally, he feels a spark of something up his spine, and he turns around. 

The spirit is a little girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, dressed in ragged denim shorts and a tank top full of holes. When she speaks, it’s in Chinese. 

Steve tells all of this to Chin, even as he shivers with the thought of what it might mean. 

“Talk to her, Steve. Why’s she been following you? What does she need?”  Chin prompts, and Steve shakes his head. Right. He’s on a mission.

He talks to her.  She tells him about how scared she is and that she doesn’t know where she is. She tells him about her family paying to come to America, and how they paid everything they had, but the men who took them decided it wasn’t enough, so they took her too. She tells him that she died alone. Steve bristles, but does not show his discontempt on his face. He gives the girl a hug and assures her that she is alright, and that no one can harm her here. He tells her he will find her family, and that she’ll see them again someday, when they come to the Unseen. It’ll be a long time for them, but time is funny here. For her it will be the blink of an eye. 

In the back of his mind, Steve thinks, human traffickers could get Hesse on and off the island, without anyone else noticing. Maybe this girl can help him as much as he can help her. She can help him find his father’s killer. 

When Steve asks, she gives him a description of the man who brought her family here. 

Steve smiles, and hugs her again, and tells her not to worry, she’s not alone here. If she only wanders enough, she’ll find other lost spirits like her to keep her company until her family joins her in the Unseen. 

And then the girl disappears, and Steve reaches out to Chin, and he slams back into his body so roughly he stumbles and falls to his knees. 

When Steve looks up, Chin is crouched next to him, Danny hovering over the two of them with an incredulous look. 

“You okay, Steve? You were in there for a long time. I was almost going to pull you out by force.” 

Danny scoffs. “A long time? The two of you just stared at each other for,” he glances at his watch, “eight minutes and then Commander Cargo Pants collapsed dramatically. There’s nothing worrying there, it’s just weird!”

Chin shakes his head. “Time works differently in the Unseen. It may have only been eight minutes here, but for Steve, it was what, an hour?”

Steve gasps for a few more breaths and then chances a glance up again. “Felt more like a day.”

“Steve!” Chin chastises and Steve  almost cows under it. “What, were you trying to drag us both into the Unseen for good?”

“It was the girl. She was so young, Chin. I hate it when they’re that young.”

“I know, I know. It’s always harder when they’re young, but I’m not your anchor, Steve. We’re not bound close enough for you to dive like that. Have you been making visits like that the whole time you’ve been away?”

Steve very determinedly avoids that question, because he has been, he was careless when he was working with Freddie and he knows it. 

“Doesn’t matter. We’ve got a description of a major player in the human trafficking business on the island. Time to get back in the saddle Chin. We need a CI, someone with good connections.”

Chin hesitates for only half a second before he sighs, and holds out a hand to help Steve to his feet. 

“I’ve got just the guy,” he says, and Danny, for the first time since Steve’s known him, actually smiles. 


	2. Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now with a playlist to go along with it [here!](http://konokalakaua.tumblr.com/post/178868293596/unseen-a-things-unseen-playlist-for-spirits-and)

Kamekona Tupuola is not at all who Steve was expecting when Chin said he had a man with good intel on all of the happenings on the island. He is a powerful descendant of the god Kanaloa, he could probably snap Danny like a twig (both of which don’t surprise Steve), and he’s standing behind the counter of a shave ice shop and selling them size XXL t-shirts to wear while he talks to Chin (which does surprise Steve). It’s a strange combo, but Steve doesn’t question it, especially when Kamekona gives them the name of a man matching the spirit’s description of their human trafficker.

“Kamekona says Sang Min Soo is at the top of the food chain for human trafficking on the island. If a trafficker brought Hesse here, it’s either Sang Min, or Sang Min will know who it was,” Chin says, when he joins them at Danny’s car.

“You trust this guy?” Danny asks, with his skepticism written all over his face.

Chin nods. “Absolutely. He’s never given me bad intel. I trust him.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Steve says.

“It’s not good enough for me, but I suppose that doesn’t matter,” Danny mutters petulantly.

Steve shrugs, and ignores the comment.

“Only catch is that there’s no way this guy will talk to cops, and he knows every cop on the island. If he sees us coming he’ll run or start shooting,” Chin adds.

Steve smirks at Danny’s scowl. “I’m guessing you’ve got someone in mind?”

“I’ve got just the person.”

~*~

The last time Steve saw Kono Kalakaua, he was stopping by a Kelly-Kalakaua family event with his dad, because they had been driving home, and his dad had declared that he needed to see Chin to handle an emergency. Jack had gone off with Chin to handle whatever spirit was bothering him, and Chin’s Aunties had tried to feed Steve an entire five course meal in the ten minutes he was with them. Kono had been seven years old, talking about her brand new surfboard to any relative that could spare a few seconds of attention for her. She had stopped by to tell Steve she was going to be a professional surfer when she grew up, and then she had disappeared into the crowd, and Jack had shown up and they had left and that was that.

Roughly seventeen years had apparently not changed Kono’s passion for surfing. She cuts through the water like a pro, which Chin says she was, for a while, and then steps out of the water and decks a guy square in the jaw for dropping in on her wave, and Steve thinks that he is going to get along with Kono just fine.

“Howzit cuz?” she greets, sticking her board in the sand.

Chin laughs, and gives her a hug even though she’s dripping wet, and introduces Danny.

Before he can introduce Steve, Kono cuts in, “Steve McGarrett, right? Your dad was Chin’s speaker. I was sorry to hear what happened to him.”

Steve grins. “Thank you. Nice to really meet you. Last I saw, you were about this big,” he says, and holds his hand below his waist.

“You been gone a long time, brah,” Kono says, and she holds out a hand to Steve.

Steve takes her hand, and a blinding light explodes behind his eyes, and he is thrust suddenly and unexpectedly into the Unseen. Kono stands beside him, staring at him in disbelief, her hand still clasped in his. She almost jerks her hand free in surprise, but Steve grasps it even tighter, a silent plea in his eyes.

When he finally finds his voice, he says, “Don’t let go. You’re anchoring me here. If you let go, I’m lost.” There is a fear in his voice he’d deny  later, at the prospect of being lost in the Unseen like this.

Kono doesn’t let him go. She clutches his hand tighter, and grabs his forearm with her free hand. “Tell me what you see.”

“I’m in the Unseen. It’s not like it usually is. It’s still a foggy mess, but it’s clearer now. And you’re here. When I’ve done this before, my anchor’s never had a presence here.”

Kono’s hand flex minutely, and then the vaguely panicked look on her face melts into one of surprise, and then into a blinding smile. Steve can’t help but mirror her grin.

Kono tilts her head to the side like she’s listening, and her smile fades. “Alright, I think it’s time you bring us back, huh? Danny’s asking if he should call an ambulance, and Chin’s debating calling our Auntie, and I don’t think you want either of those things.”

Steve shudders at the thought.

“That’s what I thought,” Kono says, smug. “Bring us back to the Seen, Steve.”

His response is immediate and strong. Kono asks him to take them back and it’s like he couldn’t refuse if he wanted to. The second he hears the words, he goes careening back into his body with enough force to send him stumbling to the ground. A quick glance tells him that Kono felt that too, she’s on her knees next to him, the both of them panting for breath. There’s an ache deep in Steve’s chest, down to his bones, into his soul. His vision is blurry. There’s a ringing in his ears and a buzzing in his throat and pulsing behind his eyes, it feels like there are dozens of spirits pushing for his attention all at once.

Kono blindly reaches out and clamps a hand on his forearm, and it all goes away.

They take a steady breath in unison.

Chin laughs at them from where he’s crouched in front of them. “You two had me worried for a second.”

“What in the hell was that?” Danny demands. “And I swear to god if you tell me it’s something to do with your stupid ghosts, I’m gonna scream.”

Kono and Steve right themselves, Kono’s hand still clamped on his forearm, and everyone pointedly does not answer Danny’s question. Danny sighs and throws his hands into the air.

They all take a moment to settle down, Chin makes a couple jokes about the strength of the bond Steve and Kono share, despite the fact that it’s a freshly formed bond, and Kono punches her cousin in the shoulder and doesn’t let go of Steve. Steve is grateful for that, because he’s certain that if she released him, he’d have a pounding headache. It’ll take a couple of hours for the two of them to reorient themselves. It’ll be fine.

“Anyway, I’m guessing you didn’t come hunting me down for this,” Kono finally says, gesturing between her and Steve. “So what’s going on?”

Steve grins. “Chin tells us you’re graduating from the Academy next week. How would you like to earn a little extra credit before you do?”

“What’ve you got in mind?”

~*~

“For the record, I hate this,” Kono mutters, just loud enough to be heard by the audio equipment, before she’s pushed through the doors to the warehouse they’ve set up a meeting with Sang Min in. Steve’s skin itches, letting Kono walk into danger like this, and he tries to shrug it off. Logic says that it’s just this fledgling bond they’ve got that’s telling him he needs to rush in there and pull her out. She is more than capable of defending herself.

Steve’s stupid fucking brain says it’s going to be just like Freddie all over again.

He sits on his hands, and tries to relax when Chin places a hand on his shoulder and gives him a look. It really doesn’t work, but he’ll pretend it does. He has a job to do to keep Kono safe. He’s going to do that job, and he’s going to do it well. He will not be the reason Kono gets hurt.

It takes a lot of effort to stay put.

Steve wonders how his dad could stand it, having Chin in the line of fire with him all the time like this.

Sang Min tells Kono to remove her dress, and Steve lurches to his feet, his hand on his gun. Chin puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and shoves him back into his seat.

“Give her a minute. Let her do her job,” Chin warns. Steve, despite the scratching in his mind, listens.

The buzzing in his throat is back, and he has the sense that it’s the spirit of the young girl from before, the one who had given them Sang Min’s description, and he longs to reach out to her, to tell her that they’re going to take down the man who carried her to her death, but he can’t, not without an anchor.

Still, he can’t help but turn towards the presence he feels, and he’s shocked by what he sees. Instead of the empty space he’s accustomed to, he sees the girl, her form flickering and flashing in and out of existence, but _there_ , in a way Steve’s never experienced before. His eyes widen, and he sits, staring at the spectre for what seems like ages.

“Steve?” Chin questions, after a long moment.

“She’s here,” Steve mutters, “The girl from before, that you helped me talk to. She’s here. I can see her. She’s in the Seen.”

Chin shakes his head, and puts a hand on the exposed part of Steve’s arm. The contact settles something in Steve’s gut, though he’s still on edge with Kono speaking to Sang Min.

“She’s not here. You’ve bonded with Kono, so you’re both going to be stronger than you’re used to being. She’s trying to talk to you, so you can see her, that’s all. The barriers aren’t breaking down or anything. Happened with your dad too,” he explains, and Steve’s about to continue that conversation when shit decides to go down in the warehouse.

Steve rushes into action. He vaguely registers that the girl follows him inside, and even more distantly watches himself tear through the warehouse to make sure Kono is safe. The next thing he’s fully aware of, Chin is strapping Sang Min into a chair a little rougher than is strictly necessary, and Steve is turning towards the girl.

She’s flickering in and out of view right next to Kono, gesturing to Kono’s hands.

Steve checks in with Danny, then crosses to Kono in two broad strides, and checks to make sure she’s okay too, before holding out his hand. Kono takes it without question, her own hand trembling a little with the fading adrenaline of the firefight. He squeezes her hand, relaxes enough for her to feel that he’s shaking too, and loosens his control just a little. He doesn’t go spiralling into the Unseen, but the girl gets clearer, and when her lips move, Steve can hear her.

“Shipping containers,” Steve finally says to Kono, when the girl stops speaking, and starts beckoning Steve forward. “We need to check the shipping containers.”

Kono nods and releases Steve, though she stays close as they make for the exit, for the shipping containers the girl had pointed out. The closer they get, the clearer Steve can hear people shouting.

Christ.

“Is that…?” Kono doesn’t need to finish her question. Steve nods, and somewhere behind them, Danny makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. Steve shares the sentiment.

He calls out in Mandarin for everyone to stand back, while Kono relays that order to Danny and the few HPD officers who have gathered with them, and then Steve shoots the lock off of the container. No way in hell is he sitting around waiting for someone to dig up a lock cutter while people are stuck caged like animals.

Danny shoves in front of Steve the second the lock’s blown, and wastes no time in getting the doors open while Steve holsters his gun. Danny and the HPD have the situation as a whole well in hand, Steve has a different task at hand.

“Kono, can you…” Steve trails off, holding out his hand. Kono takes it, holding tight as her eyes scan over the crowd of people they’ve just freed from the shipping container.

There’s murder in her eyes. Steve understands that feeling, but he’s got something else to focus on for the moment. Kono does too.

“Go ahead. I’ve got you, boss,” she says, and Steve lets go.

He shifts through a few layers of reality until he can hear the girl’s voice, as she points and pleads with him, focusing on staying where he is so he can hold a conversation with her before relaying some information to Kono. Like in the Unseen, his lips move, but his voice only echoes in his head, and it’s so much stranger now, because he’s here, in the Seen, with people moving around him, not in the Unseen where the rules are all different. It’s like the lines are blurred and it makes Steve’s skin crawl. He focuses on the girl though, giving the description of her parents to Kono as the girl gives it to him. He sees Kono glance around until she finds the couple, and has a weird moment of realization when he notices that he’s half detached from his physical form. His body is still clasping Kono’s hand and staring straight ahead, but his eyes are glazed over, cloudy. The top half of his body doesn’t line up with where he’s bent over to listen to the girl. There’s his body and his spirit and they are not one in the way they should be and it’s fucking unsettling.

Weird.

Steve pushes it to the back of his mind, as Kono beckons the girl’s parents over. This part is never easy, telling someone they’ve lost a loved one. He can’t imagine what it’s like to learn you’ve lost a child. He can’t imagine what they’ll think hearing it from someone who looks possessed, but he’s pretty sure Kono doesn’t speak fluent Mandarin, and he’s the one who can translate between the girl and her parents.

Their faces already look grim when they lay eyes on Steve, and he can’t even open his mouth before the father says, “ _She’s gone, isn’t she?_ ”

Steve nods, but his body’s head doesn’t move. It takes a minute for him to coordinate that. He finally gets his body to nod along with his spirit, and gives the girl’s parents a sad smile.

_“I’m so sorry for your loss. But your daughter is the one who lead my team and I here today. She saved lives, your lives and many more, by finding me.”_

_“You can see her?”_ her mother asks, a look of hope on her face.

Steve makes his body nod again. _“I can’t reveal her to you, but I can see her. I’m speaking with her. She sought me out, to try to find the man who did this, and she succeeded.”_

 _“You’re a soul-speaker,”_  the girl’s mother says, with a touch of wonder.

_“We call ourselves spirit speakers, on the island. But yes.”_

_“Tell her we love her. Tell her we will miss her every day until we are with again and tell her,”_ the girl’s mother cuts off with a sob that makes Kono’s face pinch in sympathy.

 _“Tell her we’re so proud of her, for what she did. We’ll be with her before she knows it,”_ her father finishes.

Steve makes his body nod once again, and then turns and tells the girl what her parents said. She smiles a sad, sad smile and gives Steve a hug and gives him a final message, and fades out of existence between one breath and the next. Steve snaps fully back into his body, and releases the death grip he had on Kono’s hand.

“ _She said not to hurry. She loves you, and she’ll be waiting for you. It’ll be easy, I promise. Time for her will go by like nothing. Things are not so permanent in the Unseen. She’ll find other lost spirits like herself, and they’ll look after her until you can come for her. Trust me,”_ Steve tells the girls parents, and they thank him and then they’re gone too.

Steve lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and turns to survey the scene around him. He’s almost about to call this whole thing a complete success and go help Chin with Sang Min, when he sees Danny.

Danny, who is standing there, directing the flow of people and helping a few who seem unsteady on their feet and still going despite the fact that Steve can see a line of bright red cut across his bicep.

He’s also giving Steve a very peculiar look, but that goes away as soon as he notices Steve noticing him.

“You got hit. You need to get that looked at,” Steve demands, crossing to Danny with Kono on his heels, like she thinks she might have to hold him back. To be fair, Steve supposes he looks a little angry. He has resting bitch face, sue him.

“Oh, so now he has a concern!” Danny exclaims, and Steve hears Kono stifle a snort at that.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes, you are excused, you absolute neanderthal! Who goes running head first into a fire fight with nothing but a vest on and a tiny little pistol to defend himself? Are you touched in the head? What the hell is the matter with you? Just because you can ‘talk’ to ghosts,” Danny says, complete with air quotes, “does not mean you should be trying to _make yourself into one._ ”

Steve’s taken aback a little. “Kono was in danger, I made a call. It worked.”

“It worked. It worked? I got shot, you idiot!”

“You need a few stitches, you’ll be fine,” Steve insists.

Danny scoffs. “You know, proper protocol when you _get someone shot_ , Steven, would be to apologize. You know that right? Or did they not teach you that in Army school?”

“Navy,” Steve snaps back, and Kono steps between them, with a disapproving look.

“Children,” she scolds, and both Danny and Steve look at her in offense. She smiles. “Boss, why don’t you go check on Chin? Danny and I can handle this out here. Right?”

The look she gives them both does not leave room for argument, so Steve goes, and Danny turns back to his task, muttering, “Military animal.”

As he goes, Steve can’t help thinking that he could see this group turning into an incredible team, provided he and Danny don’t rip each other’s heads off first.

No problem.


	3. Forward

Steve plunges head-first into the Unseen so fast he almost can’t stop himself. Even when he does get his feet under him, he can’t get his bearings for far too long. Finally, distantly, he hears Kono’s voice. 

“Steve, goddammit, come back! Where are you? Come on, Steve. Steve!”  she shouts, and it’s echoing in his head and all around him and there’s something just a little bit off about that, but he doesn’t question it. 

“I’m here,” he finally makes himself say. He hears Kono sigh. 

“Scared me for a second boss. You were lost for a minute there.”

“Sorry,” he apologizes half heartedly. He glances around. He vaguely recognizes this as Kuhio Avenue, but he knows that doesn’t mean anything. This might be Broadway Avenue to someone else, or Park Street to another, or Sunset Boulevard to another. The Unseen is always in flux, it molds, at least superficially, to who is observing it. None of these buildings are real, Steve knows. They’re here because the Unseen thinks he needs a familiar environment. 

To hunt down Victor Hesse’s spirit, he really does. 

“You remember what you’re doing there boss?” Kono’s voices rings out, and Steve almost flinches in surprise. 

“I remember,” he says, and he begins his search. 

He reaches out with every part of himself, stretching himself as far as possible to seek out the spirit of his father’s killer. Distantly, he brushes on Anton Hesse’s spirit, and jerks far away from that. He doesn’t need to be stirring up anything with an angry spirit. Seeking out a lost soul is difficult enough as it is. 

As he reaches out into the depths of the Unseen, he wanders the hazy construct of the streets of Waikiki, searching and searching and searching. Kono calls out to him a few times, but he doesn’t answer. Something seems off, just enough to raise Steve’s hackles. 

He opens a door and it gives way to empty space and another street and he knows that’s how the Unseen works, but something’s wrong. He’s having a strong feeling of dejavu, but he can’t pinpoint what’s wrong here. He steps through the door and he’s suddenly no longer alone. Danny is standing there, in one of his stupid ties, with his slicked back hair, and hands tucked into the pockets of his impractical slacks. Steve’s heart stutters. 

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Danny says, all heavy Jersey accent, but it’s not full of fire like usual. It’s deliberate quiet, reserved anger and careful calm. It is not the Danny he knows, and Steve’s brow creases in concern. “Your plan worked? You think it worked? You got me shot,” Danny snaps, and suddenly there’s red running on his shirt, he’s bleeding, there are bullet wounds in his chest. 

“Danny!” Steve cries out, and he rushes forward, reaches out for his partner, only to find a still smoking gun in his hand. 

“You did this to me,”  Danny hisses, and then he is not Danny anymore, his face twisting and contorting into something inhuman and horrifying and Steve drops the gun and stumbles back, only he can’t drop the gun, it’s sticking to his hand like someone’s glued it to him, like it’s a part of him, and all at once everything comes crashing down around his shoulders. The world is crumbling around him and compacting to crush him in it’s vice like grip and Victor’s voice is shoving it’s way into his head and drowning out Kono’s reassurances that he’s okay, and Steve’s screaming, even though he can’t even hear his own voice--

Steve jerks awake, panting and gasping for breath. He reaches blindly for a weapon before he registers that he’s alone, in his bed, in his own home. He’s safe. He flops back onto the mattress and lets out a deep sigh. His hands tremble just enough to notice as he runs one through his sweat damp hair. 

It was just a dream. 

A dream of a memory, but a dream nonetheless. When he had gone in search of Victor Hesse’s spirit in reality, in the days following their shootout on the freighter, the Unseen had not collapsed in on Steve like that. He had not been caught unawares like that, had not been suffocated by an incorporeal plane. 

Danny hadn’t been there.

He’d just spent so long wandering that Kono had to all but force him back to the Seen. He’d stayed in for nearly half an hour. Chin and Kono were worried he wasn’t going to come out. But he did, with the conclusion that Victor Hesse did not die and Steve had failed. 

Steve’s phone buzzes and lights up and he jumps. 

**[from: Kono Kalakaua, 3:27 AM]**

_ You alright boss?  _

Steve scrubs a hand over his face. Fuck. He was hoping he hadn’t woken Kono with that little incident. 

Over the past few weeks of working together, as a part of a team, and as an anchor and speaker, Steve’s gotten a lot closer to Kono. He’s gotten a lot closer with Chin, too, of course, and Danny is something else entirely, but with Kono it’s something different than just growing closer. With training and cases, she spends half the time they’re around each other in Steve’s head. She knows him inside out, even though they’ve only known each other a few weeks. They’ve also got a very primitive empathetic bond. It’s nothing serious, but with the amount of time they spend stuck together, when they feel something strongly enough, the emotions tend to bleed. It’s useful for work, they can feel when the other is in danger, and it’s useful in keeping conflict to a minimum because they can’t hide severe irritation from each other, but it’s not always so great. 

Like now, when his dream anxiety bleeds over into Kono’s mind and wakes her up in the middle of the night. 

Sometimes he wishes he had something like this for Danny. He never knows what his partner is thinking, doesn’t quite know how to handle him yet, even with the easy team dynamic they’ve all settled into. He shoves that to the back of his mind though. He just woke Kono up at 3:30 in the morning, he owes her at least a little bit of an explanation. 

**[to: Kono Kalakaua, 3:31 AM]**

_ Just a dream. Sorry to wake you. _

**[from: Kono Kalakaua, 3:32 AM]**

_ Need to talk about it? _

**[to: Kono Kalakaua, 3:32 AM]**

_ No. _

**[from: Kono Kalakaua, 3:33 AM]**

_ Your call. You at least going to tell me what that warm feeling I just got was?  _

Steve swears under his breath, even though there’s no one around to hear him. Are his thoughts about Danny really strong enough for Kono to get a feeling from it? They’re going to have to work on learning some control over this whole empathy thing. 

**[to: Kono Kalakaua, 3:35 AM]**

_ No idea what you’re talking about.  _

**[from: Kono Kalakaua, 3:36 AM]**

_ If you’ve got to tell yourself that, okay. But remember how much time I spend hooked into your mind, McGarrett. I know you better than you know you.  _

_ Anyway, it’s late. If you’re not dying, and don’t want to talk, I’m going to sleep. See you in the morning.  _

That first text is vaguely concerning, but Steve’s too tired to really think about it too much. He’ll deal with it later. As it is, he barely shoots a “good night” back and gets his phone to his nightstand before he’s slipping into sleep again. 

His sleep for the rest of the night is not peaceful, but it is sleep, and he’s glad he at least got a little bit more rest before he has to get ready and go to work. With Halloween just around the corner, supernatural activity is picking up all over the island. Since Five-0 takes point on most major crimes and criminal supernatural activity, the next few days are going to be long ones for the team. Even Chin is on edge, his eyes flashing out of his control while he works, with the upcoming holiday. 

Steve can already feel a headache building behind his eyes, there are so many spirits trying to get his attention. They’ll have to deal with that soon. He sighs heavily, and decides he’ll treat himself to coffee from some overpriced shop on the way to work as a consolation for the toll he knows it’s going to take on him to spend so much time in the Unseen. 

“Who are you, and what have you done with Steve McGarrett?”  Danny says, the second Steve steps into the office and Steve has to pause. He almost looks to his reflection in the glass walls of the offices, concerned that maybe he’s showing symptoms of a curse. They had faced down with an angry witch last week, it was possible. 

But then Danny’s straight face breaks and he looks at Steve’s coffee cup and starts laughing. 

“See I ask because Steve McGarrett, Mr. Military, SuperSEAL himself, who usually drinks his coffee with  _ butter _ in it, is standing in front of me with pumpkin spice latte. So you must be a changeling, or an alien clone, or something,” Danny says, and Steve wrinkles his nose. 

He makes an offended noise in the back of his throat as Kono and Chin snicker at Danny’s comment and opens his mouth to retaliate before Danny jumps in again. 

“Actually, I don’t know why I’m surprised. You like pineapple on pizza. You obviously have no taste.”

“You’re the one without taste. Pineapple’s good on anything, and with all your complaining about how I take my coffee, you should be glad that I’m broadening my coffee horizons, you--” Steve chokes on his next word, and has to hastily set all of his things down to brace himself against a wall. 

“Steve?” Danny says, his teasing tone replaced with concern in a split second. He moves like he’s going to try to steady Steve, a half aborted motion.

Across the room, Kono puts a hand to her throat and scrunches up her face, then crosses to Steve and grabs his arm. 

Steve takes a deep breath, and plunges into the Unseen. 

“Steve,” he hears Kono’s voice, and he exhales, and finds his footing. The Unseen orients itself for him, this time taking the familiar form of a battleship, because, Steve suspects, there are a lot of spirits trying to get his attention, and this is an easy way to organize them for him, while still giving him a familiar environment. 

“I’m here,” Steve tells her, and Kono sighs in what sounds like relief. He’ll have to ask what that’s about later. For now, there are a dozen spirits who want his attention and he has to sort out which of them need attention now and which ones he can help without a time constraint. 

He wanders down a hall at random, following the tugging behind his collarbones, and letting it lead him to a door a few meters down. The door opens when he approaches it and reaches out a hand, but without him ever touching it. He steps inside and almost stumbles right back out. 

The room is empty, stripped down to its bunks and nothing else, which Steve was expecting. The spirit in the room is Danny, which he was not expecting. He has a moment of blind panic where he feels like the walls are closing in around him, and for a second, the walls around him actually do begin to close in on him, and Danny looks at him in something like disdain. Steve’s hands shake and he throws them out on either side of him with a yell, and the walls stop closing in. 

One of Danny’s eyebrows creeps towards his hairline and he watches Steve carefully, before his mouth drops open in a horrifying scream and he disappears. 

Steve stumbles back into the now-closed door, and slips right through it, falling flat on his back at the feet of a spirit, one who is not his partner, one with a vicious looking wound on her neck, and a terrified expression etched onto her face. He hates to think how she died, but he knows he has to ask. 

“A witch,” she tells him when he asks, in a voice that is too small and too loud all at once, and grates on every last one of Steve’s nerves. He’s still unsettled from the not-Danny he’s just gotten away from. “She said she needed me, for a ritual, that my sacrifice would help the old gods live and they’d be grateful for it.”  She gives Steve a description of the witch that killed her, and then she starts to cry and Steve hugs her and promises that he’ll find the witch who did this to her, and then there’s a knock on the door, which startles the both of them so much that Steve nearly throws a punch at the empty air on instinct. 

But instead of the trouble that Steve was expecting, the door swings open very slowly, and reveals an elderly woman standing on the other side of it. Steve looks back to the girl and watches as the wound on her neck closes itself, knitting back together in the same way Chin’s supernatural healing fixes injuries he gets. 

“Grandma?” the girl asks, and the woman nods and smiles sadly. 

“We were not expecting you so soon, but I can’t say I’m not happy to see you,” the girl’s grandmother says, and Steve feels like he’s intruding. He’s never been around when a spirit has reunited with their ancestors in the Unseen before. It’s always just been him and the spirit who had sought him out. Today is just full of surprises, it seems. The grandmother turns to Steve and gives him a soft smile as well. “Find who did this to her, and you make them pay, understood?” 

Steve nods once. “I’ll make sure that the woman who did this faces justice, Auntie.”  

“I’ll find you if you don’t, spirit-speaker,” she warns and then she turns around, her hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder, and they both evaporate as though they had never been there. 

Steve places a hand against the wall nearest him and watches the construct waver as he does his best to get the Unseen to convey a message to the other spirits waiting for him. He’ll help them as soon as he can, but if there’s a witch trying to raise the old gods, he has to go handle that immediately. 

“Kono,” he calls out, his voice only sounding in his own head. 

Kono does not answer. 

Steve calls again. 

No answer. 

Steve bellows.

“Steve?” he finally hears Kono’s voice, and she half-manifests next to him, holding his hand and watching him with concern. 

“Take me back, we have a case,” he says, and she helps him back into his body so fast he thinks he might have whiplash from it. 

He’s still stumbling back into the physical world when Kono lets him go, and he’d be surprised at her lack of caution-- she usually waits to be certain Steve’s back to himself before letting go-- if not for the scene he’s coming back to. 

Danny’s on the floor, his eyes moving rapidly behind his eyelids, twitching so much he might as well be seizing, 

“What the hell happened?” Steve asks and he crouches next to Danny’s feet. 

Chin’s already cushioning Danny’s head, his eyes closed in concentration, probably listening to Danny’s breathing and heartbeat. Kono’s got a hand on his forehead, and then she’s feeling for Danny’s pulse as well, and her brow is pinched in worry. 

“I don’t know,” Chin says. “Before you went on your visit, you got a little unsteady, Danny was helping Kono keep you steady and then he just collapsed. I was able to move fast enough to keep him from hitting his head, but he’s just been like this since you went in. He started shaking when Kono pulled you back,” he mutters, and the way his voice comes out, Steve knows Chin’s fangs have popped out from the stress. 

Even Chin’s normally impeccable control is suffering this close to Halloween. They’re in for a long week. 

“Looks like he’s coming out of it. Danny?” Kono says, gently patting Danny’s face to try to get his attention as Danny’s eyes glance around, unfocused and glassy. “Danny, come on, do you know where you are? Hey, Danny,” Kono repeats, a little sharper this time, and Danny’s eyes snap towards her. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m in the office. The hell am I doing on the floor?” Danny grumbles, trying to sit up. 

Chin grabs his shoulder to steady him when Danny grimaces. 

“Take it easy brah,” Chin warns. 

“What the hell happened to me?” Danny asks.

Kono shrugs, and lets out a relieved sounding sigh. “You collapsed when Steve left to visit the Unseen. We don’t know, you just--hey, take it easy!” she cuts herself off when Danny pushes himself to his feet.

He stands still for a moment, as though he’s testing out his own legs and then holds out his hands in a “see?” sort of gesture. 

“I feel fine,” he says, sounding a little skeptical of his own assessment of himself. “Of course it was something to do with the ghosts. It’s always gotta be something to do with the fucking ghosts with you three. Always the ghosts,” he complains, and then he’s walking towards his office as though nothing had just happened. 

Kono and Chin get to their feet, and they share a confused look with Steve, and then Danny calls back at them. 

“I’ll take it easy today, and if I start feeling bad, I’ll see a doctor, but do not call an ambulance! I do not need that bill, thank you!” Danny shouts over his shoulder and then his office door closes behind him. 

Steve shrugs, because that’s what he’d do too, in all honesty, and he heads for his office too.

They’ve got a witch to find.


	4. Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh, descriptions of ghosts in this chapter   
> also a dead cat, but only its ghost

Kamekona knows their witch, it turns out. 

Or, Kamekona knows a guy who knows a guy who knows their witch so he makes a few calls and gets back to them. It doesn’t matter. The point is, when Kamekona calls them back, they get a name for their witch.

The spirits he hadn’t gotten to speak to that morning press against the back of his mind as he hangs up the phone. They’ve been flickering in and out of his view all day, some of them too antsy to get his attention to simply wait. The headache he’d woken up with has bloomed into almost a full blown migraine, so he pops a few Advil and downs a full water bottle and takes a few deep breaths. There’s a man with a ring of bruises around his neck in the corner of Steve’s office and his stomach rolls just looking at him. An old woman with sunken cheeks is sitting on his sofa, smiling at him softly. There’s a cat too, flickering in and out of existence on his windowsill as it takes a nap, because why not. 

Steve sighs and rubs at his temples and politely asks them all to leave, he promises he will come talk to them all later. The man says something that Steve cannot hear, Kono isn’t here to help him, and the woman’s smile broadens just a bit and they both disappear. The cat looks at Steve and blinks slowly, stretches its limbs out and then goes back to sleep. 

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and accepts the fact that he’s just going to have a spirit cat for a while. 

Danny knocks on his door and pokes his head into Steve’s office. “What’s the matter with you, you look like shit,” he says, his voice laced with concern even as he pulls a face at Steve. Steve’s chest warms at the attention from his partner, and he valiantly tries to shove it down.

“Just a headache. Lots of spirits. Halloween thins the boundaries between the Seen and Unseen. Lots of them come looking for attention.”

“Always the ghosts with you. We’ve got a possible lead on our witch, a possible associate.” 

Steve nods. “You and Chin go check it out,” he says, standing slowly. “Kono and I will see what we can dig up on them from here. Call us if you need anything.”

Danny nods and heads for Chin’s office to collect him, even though they can both see that Chin’s already gathering his things. Sometimes Steve almost forgets that Chin’s a werewolf, that he could tell if a man was lying by listening to his heartbeat, pick out each of the team by their scent alone, could snap Steve in half if he had the inclination. Chin was always very careful to keep himself in check, very aware of his own abilities, so much so, that others became almost unaware of them. 

A roll of nausea in his gut brings him back to the task at hand and he moves to meet Kono at the computer table as Danny fills Chin in on the situation from the door of his office. 

“You’re not looking too hot boss,” she says, without ever looking up from her work, and Steve gives her a half smile. 

“There are a lot of spirits vying for attention today. Always gets worse around Halloween, but I can see some of them now. Never been like that before. It’s getting in my head a little. A spirit-cat has been following me around all day,” Steve grumbles as he glances at what Kono’s got on the screen. 

She finally looks up at the mention of the cat, her face twisting a bit as she takes in the grimace Steve’s wearing. She reaches out slowly and places a hand on the back of Steve’s neck, and the sound he lets out is probably inappropriate for the workplace, but the sudden absence of  _ everything _ that had been pressing on him before is so nice he can’t help it. 

Chin smirks as he walks by them. Steve almost flips him off, but this is a professional environment, so he restrains himself. 

“Thank you Kono,” he says, instead of teasing Chin right back. 

“What was that?” she prods and he chuckles. 

“I’m useless without you,” he jokes, and it draws a laugh from Chin and from Kono, but Danny stays silent, ignoring the interaction in favoring of heading for the door. 

He must be in a bad mood or something. 

Steve decides he’ll ask about it later, tells them to be careful and call for backup if they need it, and turns to the table as Kono shifts her grip on him to his wrist. The spirit-cat comes padding into the room, and now that Kono’s touching him, he can hear when it purrs and feel it when it rubs up against his leg. Kono digs up information on their suspected witch and her possible associate while the spirit-cat leaps onto the table. Steve pets it, and as Kono works and he pets the cat, he has a few conversations with spirits who wander into the Seen to seek him out. 

The elderly woman from before comes back, and asks him to make sure it’s not one of her family that finds her body, she died of natural causes, but she still doesn’t want to do that to them, and he calls someone up to deal with that. A young man with a gunshot wound in his chest comes in and tells Steve that his girlfriend shot him and Steve calls Duke to have him dispatch someone to the girlfriend’s house. The man with the bruised neck from before asks Steve to send someone to find his body because otherwise no one will, and Steve makes a request for that to be taken care of as well. An elderly man makes the same request as the woman from before. A dog comes in and startles the cat and licks Steve’s hand and then bounds away. 

The cat curls up again and Steve sets back to scratching its tiny, spectral head as he deals with a long line of spirits, mostly younger ones, asking if he can seek out their families for them, to deliver messages. It breaks Steve’s heart that he has to say no, but he can tell that these spirits are all long dead, and long dead spirits should not be passing messages to the Seen. It’s one thing for Steve to pass reassurances along from newly dead spirits to their grieving family members, for him to let a victim say goodbye one last time through him, for a family to tell their recently lost loved one that they’ll be along soon enough, but passing messages along like this is against the rules, just like it would be for him to seek out his father or his mother to try to speak to them. It only causes bigger problems, stirring things up like that, blurring lines, keeping spirits from settling in the Unseen, so he gives little comforts, and sends each of these spirits on their way. 

By the time he’s worked through each of them, he feels completely drained, and Kono looks a little spent, too, but the pressing pain behind his eyes and the buzzing in his throat have dissipated, so he’ll call it a win. 

The cat’s still there too, and Steve can’t actually bring himself to care about it. He kind of likes the little guy. 

Kono glances over at him, when he’s finally done with the visiting spirits, and her eyes widen. 

“Holy shit, Steve,” she mutters, staring at his hand.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asks, already coming up with a list of possible worst case scenarios. 

“There’s a cat,” she says, finally, and Steve almost lets out a hysterical laugh. 

“You can see him?” 

“How can I see him?”

“Your bond with Steve’s getting stronger,” a new voice interjects, and Steve almost startles when he looks up to seen Chin and Danny stepping back into the office. “If a spirit’s presence here is strong enough, if they’re demanding Steve’s attention enough, and he’s interacting with them, you might be able to see them,” Chin explains and Kono smiles broadly.

“Steve’s got a spirit-cat,” she tells Danny and Chin. “I’m gonna name him Beetlejuice.”

Steve scoffs, “What kind of name is that?”

“Oh, we’re not going for Casper the Friendly Ghost?” Danny ribs, and soon they’re all tossing around increasingly horrible names for this poor spirit-cat.

The cat doesn’t move from under Steve’s hand, purring loudly, even though only Steve can hear him. 

“No, we’re sticking with Beetlejuice!” Kono declares finally, and they all relent. 

“Fine, but I’m gonna call him Beetle,” Steve warns, and Kono shrugs. 

“Fine by me,” she concedes, and Beetle the spirit-cat purrs like he’s agreeing.

~*~

Chin and Danng brief him and Kono, and Steve steps into his office to make a call.

Steve is a little disappointed to hear that the possible accomplice couldn’t give them any information on their rogue witch, but he does have one more route to go, and now that he’s dealt with the other spirits pressing in on him, he’s feeling a bit more level. 

“You know I’m on duty, right?” Catherine says as soon as she picks up the phone and Steve smiles at the affection he knows is behind the short greeting. 

“Hello to you, too, nice to hear your voice, I’m doing well, thanks for asking,” Steve replies and Catherine lets out a quiet laugh. 

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant Commander McGarrett?”  she asks, teasing. 

“How do you know I’m not just calling to say hello?” 

“Are you?”

Steve’s quiet for a beat before he admits, “No. I need a favor.”

“Color me surprised,” Catherine snaps back, but there’s not heat behind her words. “How can I help?”

“You’ve got an extended leave coming up soon, right? Like, tomorrow soon?” Steve asks.

“I’m not going to ask how you know that, but yes, I do. Three months, starting tomorrow. What’s going on, Steve?”

“We’ve got a case. A witch is trying to raise the old gods,” he says and he can hear Catherine gasp. “We’ve got a name, and we found a possible accomplice but we still can’t find her. She’s already killed at least one person, and Chin thinks the ritual she’s probably going to perform will require at least two more sacrifices.”

“That’s serious, but what does this all have to do with me?”

“You’re the best tracker I know, Cath. Until the actual ritual takes place, the magic won’t be strong enough for any of the trackers HPD has to sense, and I’m not putting a civilian in this witch’s path. If we can’t come up with anything by tomorrow, will you come in?”

“Yes, of course,” Catherine says, and Steve sighs in relief. As far as backup plans go, Catherine is a pretty phenomenal one. She’s the most powerful tracker Steve knows in the service, she’s more than qualified to help them with this, she’s experienced, and above all else, Steve trusts her with his life, just like he trusts Kono and Chin and Danny. 

Kono raises an eyebrow at him through the glass wall of his office and she taps her chest once. She must be feeling the touch of reliefaffectioncomfort that’s suddenly rushed through Steve’s chest at Catherine’s agreement to his plan. He waves his hand at her, he’ll explain later, and she shrugs and turns back to her work. 

Steve does not notice the look Danny gives him and Kono.

~*~

They don’t come up with anything new by the time everyone’s ready to go home, so Steve and Kono handle the few spirits vying for attention from them, and Steve texts Catherine to tell her they need her help, and they go home. 

The next morning is an early one, they want to wrap this up as soon as they can, and he can already hear Danny’s complaint at the early start, before he’s even gotten in his car to go in to the office. 

He’s surprisingly not the first one there. Chin’s hunched over the table, the brightness of the computer turned all the way down, the lights off, and the heel of one hand pressed to his forehead. Something wrenches in Steve’s chest at the sight. 

“Hey, Chin, you okay?” he asks quietly.

“Huh? What?” Chin startles at Steve’s approach. “Oh, sorry, yeah, I’m fine,” he says, but when he looks up, his eyes are flickering back and forth between glowing silver and their normal brown, and Chin’s got a grimace fixed on his face. 

“You sure about that, cuz?” Steve hears, and he looks over his shoulder to see Kono and Danny entering the office. 

“Yeah, just with Halloween coming up and all, you know,” Chin waves his hand around his head. Steve does know. His head is killing him, and it has been pretty much constantly for the past week and a half, worsening as Halloween draws nearer. “My eyes have been changing back and forth all morning. Light’s bothering me a bit”

Steve winces in sympathy and passes a cup of coffee to Kono as she comes up to them and then to Danny. He holds out a still steaming travel cup to Chin. He’d figured with the early morning, the least he could do was pick up some caffeine for the team. 

“It’s not coffee,” he says, when Chin looks like he might refuse, “it’s that herbal tea you like from the Wailana. I thought I remembered you saying it had something relaxing for wolves in it and figured if you were feeling this week like I am, you could use it.”

“I could kiss you right now,” Chin says with a smile, and Kono jokingly pulls a face.

“I’m sorry, should I leave?” Steve hears, and a smile breaks out across his face. 

“Hey Cath,” he greets. 

“Really, if you’re about to have a moment, I can come back later,” she teases, and Steve sets the remaining two cups down on the table, despite Chin’s protests about the drinks on the computer. “Hey sailor.” 

Steve pulls Catherine into a tight hug, pressing a brief kiss to the top of her head. “Good to see you Cath.” 

When he steps back so that he can introduce Catherine to his team, he feels a rush of warmth in his chest so strong it takes him a moment to realize it’s not his own emotion he’s feeling. He subtly raises and eyebrow at Kono and her eyes widen just enough to let him know that what he’s thinking is correct. 

“Lieutenant Catherine Rollins,” Steve introduces, and he’d think he was imagining the flush coloring Kono’s cheeks of not for the feeling twining between his ribs. “Detective Chin Ho Kelly, Detective Danny Williams, and Officer Kono Kalakaua, my anchor.”

Catherine shakes each of their hands, maybe maintaining contact with Kono a little longer than is strictly necessary, and Steve feels the warmth spread from his chest to twist his stomach in knots. He gives Kono a meaningful look and she glares right back at him and he’s certain that Kono is absolutely rapidly developing a strong crush on Catherine. Steve smirks, and then returns to the task at hand. 

“Catherine is a tracker with Naval Intelligence. She’s on leave for the next three months, so we get to borrow her for a while. She’s here to help us find our witch.”

Danny holds up a hand. “Woah, woah, wait, hang on. You’re a radar?”

Catherine nods. “Different people call it different things, but it all comes down to the same thing. I can sense trace amounts of magic. I’m more sensitive to it than a lot of others are, or at least more sensitive than any of the officers you have immediate access to. There are others far better than me, but Steve didn’t want to put any civilians in harm’s way, so I agreed to help.” 

“Radars are insanely rare,” Danny mutters, almost to himself, and then, turning to Steve, says, “So is everyone you know supernaturally inclined? Or are you just trying to mess with me?”

Steve grins, and says, “You’re not supernaturally inclined,” and then starts giving out orders while Danny complains. 


	5. Discussion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some emotions! have fun!

Steve doesn’t know what he was expecting when he gave Catherine’s number to Kono, but it probably wasn’t for his anchor and his ex-girlfriend to start dating. He should have expected it, given the warm feeling buzzing through his sternum every time Kono even so much as glanced at Catherine. He should have expected it by the smile that brightens Catherine’s face every time Kono walks into a room. 

He really should have expected it. 

He did not. 

Regardless, he’s happy for the both of them. Steve’s the only one who knows about their new relationship, because he can feel Kono’s intense emotions, and because Catherine is staying in his guest room while she’s on leave and Kono has been by more than a few times to pay her a visit. They’re still keeping it under wraps though, and Steve’s respecting their privacy.

Neither of them have explicitly told him about their relationship though. 

He’s accepted that it’s happening, and he’s happy for them, and he knows that they know that he knows, but they don’t talk about it. 

Which is why, when Steve is a little surprised when he comes downstairs one Sunday morning towards the end of Catherine’s leave to find Kono sitting at his kitchen table, two mugs of coffee in front of her. She’s fidgeting with the mug in her hands, one nail tracing the shape of the handle over and over and over and over.

“Kono?” He speaks quietly. There’s something heavy in the air between them, very suddenly he feels a rush of nervousness that surprises him so much it very nearly takes his legs out from under him. As it is, it makes his knees ache.

When Kono looks up at him, her expression is tight and Steve can see that her hands are trembling just the slightest bit. 

“Cath let me in before she went out for her morning run,” she says, without any lead in. 

Steve takes the seat next to her, and takes the second mug, and waits for Kono to speak again. Something tells him he needs to wait for her to be ready to start this conversation. Maybe it’s the anxiety thrumming through his chest that he is certain is not his own. 

Over the past few months, Steve and Kono have gotten much better at controlling the minor empathetic bond between them, so she’s either letting him feel her nerves, or she’s nervous enough she doesn’t realize she’s opened it up. 

Either way, he stays silent and sips his coffee until Kono finally speaks a few minutes later. 

“I need to tell you something.” The way she says it almost sounds like a question, like she’s uncertain of if she really does need to speak to him.

“I’m all ears,” Steve says, and as the words come out of his mouth, he’s suddenly very aware of what this conversation is. Again, he waits for Kono to speak again. He’s here to listen right now, and that is all.

“I know that you’ve probably figured it out by now, but I thought we should still, you know,” Kono says, with a gesture between them. Steve nods, and she takes a deep breath and continues, “Cath and I have been,” she pauses and makes a vague gesture in Steve’s direction again,. There’s a beat, and then she goes on. “We’ve been seeing each other for the past couple months and I know you’ve probably noticed that, but I figured I owe you an explanation especially if--” Kono cuts herself off and inhales slowly, wrapping both hands around her mug. 

“Kono, you don’t owe me anything.”

She smiles at him, or, really, she smiles down at her mug, and finally exhales. 

“I know I don’t.  But I want to tell you this. You’re family, Steve, as much as Chin is. You’re like my brother, I’ve been in your head, and I want to be able to talk to you about this.” 

“All right. If you want to.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Kono’s smile grows. “I think I’m a lesbian,” she says and then she laughs, just a touch hysterical, and so, so happy. “I haven’t said that out loud before. I’ve talked about it, this, but I’ve never said those words out loud.” 

Steve reaches out, takes one of her hands and squeezes and hopes that that can convey everything he can’t find the words for. 

“She makes you happy,” Steve says finally, and Kono nods. “That’s all that could possibly matter. Besides. It’s not like I’d have any room to judge you.” 

Kono’s eyes widen just a touch at the admission and Steve feels his heart flutter. This time the anxiety’s his own. He knows, of course, that Kono will be nothing but accepting, but years of keeping this part of himself hidden does not come easily. 

“You--You’re--Yeah?” 

“I’m yeah,” Steve teases, and Kono smacks his arm in mock offense. There’s a pause, and Steve hears the front door open and close; a quick glance over his shoulder tells him it’s Catherine. He waits until she’s close enough to hear, before inhaling deeply and saying, “I haven’t given it much thought, but I think I’d call it bisexual.” 

He hears Catherine pause behind him, her steps faltering for a split second, before she’s coming up and wrapping her arms around him from behind. 

She’s sweaty and still breathing heavy from her run, so Steve complains and squirms but he doesn’t pull away and he doesn’t let go of Kono’s hand, and the warmth he feels in his chest isn’t just his own. 

For the first time he can remember, Steve feels comfortable in his own skin.

~*~

When they go into work the next day, Steve is in a better mood than he’s been in in a while. He brings coffee in for everyone, and he remembered the special tea Chin likes, and Steve smiles, actually smiles, when he enters the office. 

Kono stayed the night at the house with Catherine, so the three of them arrive together, meaning Kono’s readily available for Steve to grab the second Beetlejuice the spirit cat makes an appearance. He meows, and rubs at Steve’s leg and then leaps onto the table so that Steve will pet him. Kono’s fond expression tells Steve that she can see the little grey cat too, he’s so demanding of attention this morning. 

It feels so comfortable, coming in to work to his ohana, to the persistent little cat that won’t move on no matter how hard Steve tries. To Danny’s half-hearted morning rant, to the subtle way Chin scent marks them all as his pack, to Kono’s improbable ‘early bird’ personality, and to Catherine’s familiar presence.

This is Steve’s family. It’s a good one. And now that he’s come out to Kono and Cath, finally spoken the words out loud to someone for the first time, now that they’ve had a conversation about Catherine and Kono’s relationship, Steve feels like there’s a weight off his chest. He feels like a new man. He likes this feeling. 

“Beetle’s on your shoulders, Danny,” Steve says, interrupting Danny’s spiel about Honolulu traffic. 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me! Always with the ghosts with you, and now you can’t even keep your fake cat away from me? You’re a terrible pet owner, you know that? Letting your animal climb all over me, using me like a jungle gym. What if I was allergic to cats, Steven? What then? This is very poor pet owning etiquette,” Danny complains, gesticulating wildly. Beetle digs his incorporeal claws in to Danny’s shoulders to stay put, and Danny swats at what’s likely only a hint of a feeling to him.

“Beetle’s dead, Danno. Even if you were allergic to cats, which you’re not, he wouldn’t affect you. Because he is dead,”  Steve deadpans, and Danny scowls, and picks up his coffee and glares at Steve over the rim of it as he takes a sip. 

Steve notices, then, that he’s still holding on to Kono, and he looks up at Catherine and winks playfully, smirking before he lets go. He hears Kono scoff a little bit and Catherine rolls her eyes, but they’re both smiling. 

Danny’s still going about ghosts and cats and ghost cats. 

“Hey, Beetle, c’mere, buddy,” Steve says, and the cat takes his sweet old time, but he does leave Danny alone, stretching and yawning and finally climbing up onto Steve instead. “There, now the cat’s on my shoulders. Happy? Good. Cath, you said you wanted to talk to us all about something?”

Catherine looks almost a little surprised at the sudden attention, but she nods and steps up without hesitation anyway. 

“I know I’ve only been on in a consulting capacity in the past couple months, but working with this team has been unlike anything I’ve experienced before. I’m considering transferring to the Navy Reserves, and I was wondering if there would be a more permanent place for me on the team if that were to happen.” 

The tiniest glimmer of hope blooms in his chest, and Steve knows it’s not his own; a glance at Kono confirms it. 

“Of course. You’ve been a valuable asset to Five-Oh, Cath, if you want to stay, we’d be lucky to have you,” Steve says, and Catherine’s resulting smile is near blinding. Steve can’t help but smile back. “Tell me when you make your final decision,” he tells her and she grins even broader and nods and grabs his hand to squeeze in thanks.

He can’t deny the feeling that settles in his gut at the idea of Catherine staying. It’s soothing and steady and reassured, at the thought that his ohana will still all be in one place. He revels in it for a moment before the governor calls and they’ve got a case and it’s back to work.

~*~

Catherine decides to stay. She gets the final paperwork to complete her transfer into the Navy Reserves the day before her leave is up, and Steve makes as absolutely certain as possible that they will not get a case that night. This is cause for a celebration. 

They sure do celebrate, and when they all wake up in various places around Steve’s house the next morning to five different phones all going off at once, they sure can feel it. 

There’s lots of groaning involved.

Kono and Catherine are both passed out in the room Catherine’s been staying in. Chin’s sprawled across the couch. 

And Steve just had to very carefully extricate himself from where he’d been tangled up with Danny in his own bed. 

He doesn’t want to think too hard about that. The sudden ringing of everyone’s phones is a good distraction. As he goes for his own phone where it’s, thankfully, charging on the nightstand, he hears Chin fall off the couch downstairs and muffled complaints from the guest room. 

Steve answers his phone and thanks the governor, and is very suddenly hit with the feeling of a spirit trying to speak to him as he hangs up. 

It starts as an itch in the back of his throat and he coughs to try to get rid of it and it doesn’t go away. Shit. He heaves a sigh, and picks up a pillow to drop on Danny’s head, and pads down the hall to retrieve Kono and Catherine. 

Danny shouts at him down the hall, and is still complaining by the time Chin and Steve get breakfast going a little bit later. Catherine and Kono make their way downstairs as Steve and Chin are plating up a quick breakfast for the lot of them. Chin raises an eyebrow at the two of them as they enter, but quickly shrugs and says nothing and nothing changes. 

Steve smiles, and hands over their plates, and feels content, surrounded by his family.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t want to break this moment, doesn’t think he could if he wanted to anyway, until they get to office. He’s silent, pushing back the spirit edging at his mind until they’re at the Palace and in their office and he feels he can finally shatter the strange calm they’ve all had, even with a case looming over them. 

Beetle the spirit-cat rubs against Steve’s legs, even though Steve can’t feel him, and Steve finally reaches out and takes Kono’s hand. 

The change is immediate. The headache goes away almost instantly, and Beetle’s purring becomes audible; Steve can feel the cat pressing into his shins, begging for attention. He takes a moment to breathe and then speaks to Kono. He’s certain no one else can hear him, and it’s not just from the look that Danny shoots his way. 

“I’ve got the spirit of the victim the governor called us about,” he tells Kono, as a hazy figure of a young woman comes into view, and she relays that to the rest of the team. “I’m going all the way in to talk to her.”  

And then he dives into the Unseen, coming to a sharp stop next to a waterlogged girl, whose wet hair clings to her face and neck and almost conceals the bruises that ring her eyes. She tells Steve all about the elemental who killed her and grabs his wrist and asks him to tell her parents she loves them, if he gets the chance. Steve snaps back into his body after that, with one last sad smile from the spirit. He swears he can still feel water dripping from his wrist, but when he looks down, there’s nothing there. 

He takes a breath, releases Kono’s hand, and gets going. 

It’s short work to get the name of the girl from Max, names are one thing that’s constantly an issue to get out of spirits, and he sends Kono out to notify the family. He instructs Catherine to start up a search for elemental magic as Kono leaves, has her narrow it to traces of elemental magic in wooded areas like the one the spirit described to him when the first search turns up too much for Catherine to process.

When she comes up with a few leads for them to follow, Steve turns to Chin. 

“I want you to go talk to the O’ahu pack. All three of the locations Cath is pointing us toward are in parts of the forest that are their territory. They might know something, and they’ll likely be more open to talking to another wolf. Take Catherine with you, so she can help with location if you need it. Danny and I’ll do what we can from here, call us if you find anything.”

Chin and Catherine leave with a short goodbye. 

Beetle leaps onto the computer table as the door closes behind them, drawing Steve’s attention with the way his tiny little body flickers in and out of the Seen. Without Kono near him, Steve’s perception of spirits in this realm is spotty on occasion. He’s staring at the cat that is here and also not when Danny makes a displeased noise in the back of his throat and starts for the table. 

Beetle arches his back and makes a face that tells Steve he’s hissing at Danny’s approach and vanishes completely. Steve finally looks up at Danny and understands Beetle’s reaction. 

He barely even gets to open his mouth to ask Danny what’s wrong when Danny rounds on him, fire in his eyes and a stern set to his jaw. Steve’s wondering into what’s wrong with Danny lasts a very short moment, because Danny wastes no time getting straight to the point. 

“What the hell was that all about?” Danny demands. Steve almost asks what, but Danny doesn’t give him the chance. “I get that you’re all big on the use of magic for everything and the fucking ghosts and everything, but there is actual detective work to be done, here in normal people land, Steven! You can’t ignore that and you can’t ignore that I’m a part of this team just because I’m not magic! You don’t get to drag me onto this taskforce kicking and screaming because you want my perspective and then toss me to the side just because I can’t commune with the dead or whatever nonsense you do.”

“Danny, I’m not ignoring that you’re a part of this team, and I’m not ignoring the investigative work that needs to be done,” Steve argues.

Danny scoffs and throws his hands in the air. Beetle flashes back into Steve’s vision for a split second on top of Danny’s head. Not helping. 

“Oh really, you’re not? Because unless I missed a whole lot of interaction there, you did not ask my opinion on this case at all, because you turned straight to the supernaturals on the team and relied solely on their abilities and yours to handle this. You sent Kono, alone to make a family notification, without considering the possibility that the girl’s family is involved. You sent Chin and Catherine out to check out multiple different possible crime scenes without considering ways to narrow down their search. Christ, it’s like you’ve learned nothing! Not everything has to be dealt with in record time. Sometimes you need to take a second and consider everything. Two of the four possible scenes you sent Chin and Cath after aren’t anywhere near a water source, and even though elementals can manipulate anything around them, to drench a person as bad as Max said this girl was? You’d need direct access to a body of water. But you couldn’t even take two seconds to consider all of that.” Danny sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Magic is useful. It is. Everything you guys do is useful. But you can’t rely on it entirely. I work hard to keep up with you all, to be worth something to this team without that something extra. Take a minute to consider that next time, before charging in head first like an angry bull.”

“Danny,” Steve starts, but Danny cuts him off. 

“I’m gonna head over to the M.E.’s office and see if there’s anything else that Max can tell us that might help out, see if the crime lab’s got anything back yet. Call me if you decide you need me, huh?”

Danny leaves the office, and Steve is left feeling like a total asshole. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ [konokalakaua!](http://www.konokalakaua.tumblr.com/) i love hearing from you all!


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